Category: Blog & Field Reports

Tuesday began with getting organized: boat bag, data sheets, cameras, supplies for group talk…and mundane tasks like laundry. When you live at the file site full time, some parts of life are quite ordinary! At 1300 I was at the Sea Crest, surrounded by eager Bimini Adventures guests. As they ate their lunch, I gave them background on myself, DCP and the dolphins off Bimini. They asked absolutely fantastic questions and there was never a lull in conversation. These interactions truly are one of my favorite parts about leading DCP’s Bimini field site.

On Thursday, I headed to the Sea Crest to chat with this week’s Bimini Adventures guests during their yummy lunch. They have had a great week exploring Bimini and observing the dolphins and it was nice to share DCP’s work with them, answer their questions and hear their experiences. Soon enough, it was time to wrap up so we could all get ready for the boat trip!
We departed in a stiff breeze so we not surprised to see large swells and plentiful white caps as we approached the tip of the island.

Saturday was our day of travel. Luckily, our flights were in the afternoon on Saturday. That meant we could do an early morning kayak (to Bailey’s!) and some morning yoga. Dr. H and Dr. D let all the Snorkelin’ Snakes know they could join us at ~6 am for these events! Still, we had only one participant – Kassandra! Our kayak was lovely – with a calm sea and slight breeze.

The snorkel after data collection on dolphins was amazing! Kassandra’s favorite fish was the parrotfish.

We began the day with data collection while Dr. D was in the water. It was the most interactive that Paige has seen since we’ve been here this week. Gonzalo said that one of the most interesting things was all the new behaviors we saw this morning, such as barrel rolls and some object play. There were also some odd combinations of dolphins this morning and they were playing in trios and small groups. Alex C saw a puffer fish when doing the observations this morning for the sea grass biodiversity study.

The day began wet – the evening was riddled with thunder storms that kept many of us awake. The dawn was behind the clouds and the beginning of the dolphin observations were rainy. Some of us got to sleep in a little bit longer because our groups split up for data collection sessions – some watching dolphins and others assessing biodiversity over seagrass. Mike never meets a stranger, even when he’s doing research. The visitors at Baileys thought he was one of the RIMS staff; he greeted folks with a smile.

Our morning began as usual with data collection for DCP and Dr. D. The dolphins were especially active this morning! Paige got splashed by one of the dolphins while doing observations. We had a lively breakfast that included a birthday song for Kassandra (and Dr H. sent happy birthday wishes to Katie, her daughter!). The AKR team had a nice coconut cream pie with Happy Birthday written on the plate!
We had a very enticing cognitive lecture this morning. We learned the parallels between dolphin and human intelligence.

Our morning began with a BOOM! It was a dark and stormy morning and mother nature gave us a wake-up call with a thunder alarm. But the rain and storminess were short-lived and the skies cleared to blue from cloudy before we water-taxied to Bailey’s Key for data collection and observations. The dolphins were much more active at the surface this morning than yesterday. We observed lots of play, lots of body and pec slaps and jaw claps. We saw some speed swims and chases. We also had our first official data collection session for our own research projects.

Everyone was on time, early in fact, for our data collection session. We met at the water taxi stand at 6:45 for our boat ride to Bailey’s Key. We got to observe our first interaction with Dr. D and the dolphins. Alex P. got to play fetch with Dory with a red leaf, they played about 6 times. Emily made friends with all the resident cats on Baileys and one helped her collect data.

Our day began at ~4 AM to travel to the airport to begin our trek south. This field week on Roatan is a culmination of our spring class called PS4363 – Roatan Field Study. We were on summer break and traveled from as far as El Paso to get to San Antonio for our flight. We learned that a few of us have turbulence sensitivity! Thank goodness for pretzels and ginger-ale!
On arrival, we went through the immigration line for about an hour and then swiftly got our bags and headed via shuttle to Anthony’s Key Resort.